Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the
United Nations

for

Agenda item 2 – Strategic Plan

UNWOMEN Executive Board Annual Session

New York, 16 September 2013

Thank you Mr. President and Madam Executive Director.

Introduction

Let me start with extending a warm welcome to you, Madam Executive Director.
You bring to UN Women a wealth of leadership experience, and a personal
commitment to inclusion and to addressing inequalities. We agree with you that
the coming years will provide possibilities to place empowerment and rights of
all women more prominently on the development agenda. We look forward working
with you to achieve this.

I would like to make a few comments on the strategic plan, our cooperation
with UN Women in the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) region and finally
on the post 2015 development agenda.

Strategic Plan

The Netherlands supports the priorities set out by UN Women, the principles
and chosen approach for 2014-2017. It is a solid basis for UN Women to fulfill
its mandate and contribute to gender equality and women’s empowerment worldwide,
especially in areas where women lag behind: political and economic
participation, violence against women and women’s leadership in peace and
security and humanitarian action. These are priorities we share.

Mr. President, allow me to highlight a few points on the way ahead.

Reporting on progress of the Strategic Plan will require considerable efforts
and we emphasize that parallel data collection systems should be avoided as much
as possible. In our experience, it is beneficial to provide country offices with
an opportunity to “tell their story”. Reporting must not be limited to a
counting exercise only but should also provide input for an analytical narrative
explaining UN Women’s contribution to gender equality and empowerment of women.

We wish to underline the importance of strong and independent Audit and
Evaluation functions. This will ensure accountability and critical feedback and
lessons for improving performance. We look forward to discuss the findings of
the evaluation on UN Women’s work to eliminate Violence against Women at this
Board.

The world is changing rapidly and the UN development architecture has to
change with it. An ambitious post 2015 agenda, connecting past commitments with
new challenges, requires an effective functioning UN development architecture
with clear roles and responsibilities, based on comparative advantages. As you
mentioned at the press conference last week “Delivering as One has to be taken
to new heights” for the UN to succeed and for women to benefit. We welcome that
UNWOMEN’s Strategic Plan positions UN Women as part of the UN system, committed
to promote coherence and to be accountable for its role therein.

As the Executive Director indicated during her press conference, “UNWomen has
the challenge of resources and there is a need to diversify the sources of
funding”, for instance through private sector partnerships. The Netherlands
encourages this way of resource mobilization.

Cooperation MENA-region

The Netherlands values the cooperation with UN Women in the field of
promoting women’s rights and gender equality in the MENA-region. With the crisis
in Syria evolving into its third year, more and more people face increasing
challenges just to survive. Earlier this year my Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Minister Timmermans, visited refugee camps in Turkey. My Minister of Foreign
Trade and Development cooperation, Minister Ploumen, just got back from a visit
to Za’atari, the refugee camp in Jordan. Za’atari receives 15.000 new refugees
every day and with over 2 million people living there it has become the 4th
biggest town of Jordan. Living conditions are difficult and female refugees face
many occurrences of gender based violence. We are very much impressed by the
determination of the women to take up their lives and build a living. We
appreciate UN Women’s work to support them in this area and to facilitate their
participation in decision-making as well as addressing gender based violence in
the camp. The Netherlands is pleased to have been able to contribute to the work
of UN Women in the Za’atari refugee camp.

Gender Equality in the post 2015 agenda

Mr. President, more than half of all women worldwide experience violence
during their lives. In more than a hundred countries there are discriminatory
laws against women hampering their full participation in society. This is a
severe injustice and a major obstacle for development and progress. We need to
do much better for half of humanity. For the Netherlands, gender equality and
sexual and reproductive health and rights are priorities. They are crucial for
development and a right in themselves and should be included in the post 2015
development agenda. We appreciate UN Women’s work in advocating for a
stand-alone gender goal and mainstreaming of gender equality in other goals. We
look forward to continue our partnership with UN Women for peace, justice and
development.